Nosocomial infection

Nosocomial infections are infections which are a result of treatment in a hospital or a healthcare service unit, but secondary to the patient’s original condition (and as such are a category of iatrogenic artefacts). Infections are considered nosocomial if they first appear 48 hours or more after hospital admission or within 30 days after discharge. Nosocomial comes from the Greek word nosokomeion (νοσοκομείον) meaning hospital (nosos = disease, komeo = to take care of). This type of infection is also known as a hospital-acquired infection (or more generically healthcare-associated infections).

Nosocomial infections are even more alarming in the 21st century. The main reason are the followings:

Hospitals house large numbers of people who are sick and whose immune systems are often in a weakened state;

Increased use of outpatient treatment means that people who are in the hospital are sicker on average;

Medical staff move from patient to patient, providing a way for pathogens to spread;

Sanitation protocol regarding uniforms, equipment sterilization, washing, and other preventative measures may be either unheeded by hospital staff or too lax to sufficiently isolate patients from infectious agents.

In the United States, it has been estimated that as many as one hospital patient in ten acquires a nosocomial infection, or 2 million patients a year. Estimates of the annual cost range from $4.5 billion to $11 billion and up. Nosocomial infections contributed to 88,000 deaths in the U.S. in 1995. One third of nosocomial infections are considered preventable. Ms. magazine reports that as many as 92 percent of deaths from hospital infections could be prevented. [2] The most common nosocomial infections are of the urinary tract, surgical site and various pneumonias[3]

An estimated 5% to 19% of hospitalized patients are infected, and up to 30% in intensive care units. The patients must stay in the hospital 4-5 additional days. About 9,000 people die with a nosocomial infection, but about 4,200 would have survived without this infection.

In Italy, in the 2000s, about 6.7 % of hospitalized patients were infected, i.e. between 450,000 and 700,000 patients, which caused between 4,500 and 7,000 deaths.[6]

In Switzerland, extrapolations assume about 70,000 hospitalised patients are affected by nosocomial infections (between 2 and 14% of hospitalized patients).[7]